The eDIGIREGION project is a unique collaborative engagement between four high-potential research-driven clusters in diverse European regions (South East Ireland: Central Hungary: Castilla-La Mancha, Spain and Bucharest-Ilfov, Romania) focused on engaging the triple helix partnership, in each of the four regions, to plan, design and implement an ecosystem of research, innovation, creativity and commercialisation that will support the implementation of the European Digital Agenda in each region.

This, the third in a series of eDIGIREGION International Conferences focuses on the interoperability between regional actors (government, research centres/universities, and industry) to define, action and implement region-specific Joint Action Plans (JAPs), that are aligned with regional smart specialisation strategies and economic priorities. The conference will disseminate the results achieved and detail the process of regional stakeholder engagement through the articulation of an inter-regional JAP (the iJAP), cross-border transnational collaborations and internationalisation activities in the technology domains of the Digital Agenda to support open innovation and boost regional competitiveness, unlock new business opportunities for SMEs and mobilise intra-regional mentoring and knowledge transfer. During the second day of the conference, a workshop on industry 4.0 – one of the identified priority areas among the eDIGIREGION regions, will be featured to further discuss policies and practices in the context of industry 4.0.

In parallel to the conference, a focused workshop will take place to continue the development of eDIGIREGION Inter-regional Collaborative Support Model. This workshop will build on the work with four ICT innovation concept promoters, one from each region, who participated in the 2nd eDIGIREGION International Conference in Bucharest. The focus of that workshop was to assist these promoters with their business ideation by engaging key domain experts (mentors) drawn from the four regions, all with different skill sets to provide both advice and synergistic insights to scale the concepts into sustainable business ventures. In Albacete, the original four promoters who in the meantime have interacted both regionally and inter-regional with the eDIGIREGION team will participate in another workshop to advance "The Internationalisation of their Concepts". The mentors will work with the concept promoters to achieve this. On Day 2 the concept promoters will present their strategies to the conference audience.